


don't talk about what you don't understand

by peccadilloes



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, M/M, Protests, Recreational Drug Use, Vietnam War, conscientious objector
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-20
Updated: 2018-04-20
Packaged: 2019-04-25 12:16:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14378463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peccadilloes/pseuds/peccadilloes
Summary: Ohio State, May 1970 - Remus put Phil Ochs on the record player over and over.Sarge, I'm only eighteen, I got a ruptured spleen / And I always carry a purse.





	don't talk about what you don't understand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fluorescentgrey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluorescentgrey/gifts).



> excerpted from [small gifts](https://small-gifts.dreamwidth.org/238610.html), jack being of the [hobgoblins](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8537956/chapters/19573942).

Truly pungent with dope, open the bathroom door then shut. Remus holding the roach clip and looking at Sirius for a long moment before a gratuitous sort of inhale and then pass. The metal dripping wet from Remus’s fingers.  
  
Sirius sat himself close to the tub. Really the war hadn’t started it. It was the same old problem the United States had always been: discriminating, cruel, selfish.  
  
Remus leaning against the phone booth in Big Green talking with Jack, who’d by then dropped out so long ago it startled Sirius how much they seemed to still care about each other.   
  
“All the things they took,” Remus was saying. Remus had been with Jack in the school of social work when he was a sophomore and Jack a freshman.   
  
Sirius volunteered himself to go down to Dino’s Carryout to get Choc-Ola and lemon drops for Remus and whatever you want for anyone else. Walking in the street alone in the curfew after dark.  
  
Remus put Phil Ochs on the record player over and over.  _Sarge, I'm only eighteen, I got a ruptured spleen / And I always carry a purse._  Until Sirius went next door to Big Green to get enough dope from Jack to roll Remus a joint. Then it was for hours the Hobgoblins’ shitty practice and garbled brawling hitting the walls, the phrenetic nervous energy like in Remus when Sirius dropped his hand in the bath water, and Remus shifted his eyes, cast a look. That they could still be talking about numbers after all this.  
  
How it had happened: Peter with his incessant  _nam myoho renge kyos_  and his little shrine and they had all tried it. Days and nights of ceaseless, pointless prayer.  
  
“What are you doing,” Remus said.  
  
“Thinking,” Sirius tried.  
  
Remus scoffed a little bit, shook his head. The water moved. What could they even be saying. As if there could be any feelings or emotions left.  
  
“I’m going to die over there,” Remus said, finally.  
  
“You have to work on your medical deferment.”  
  
“I’m trying.”  
  
So this is why Remus was over at Big Green making collect calls in the phone booth while Stubby watched him from the hallway and then the couch and then the kitchen, hawk-like and suspicious-looking but probably mostly just afraid.  
  
Jack had come down from wherever and leaned against the booth, buttressing.  
  
“What did he say,” Stubby blurted when Remus came out of it. Jack stood up and reached for Remus, squeezed his arm and then held onto it.   
  
“He said he wouldn’t lie for me he would just describe— just give his professional, medical opinion.”  
  
Back in the bathtub:  
  
S: But he said he’d do it.  
R: He said he wouldn’t make shit up.  
S: So what does that mean.  
R: How am I supposed to know what it fucking means. Jesus.  
  
So now it became like this in his mind every morning upon waking the certainty that he’d written the letter but that it hadn’t been enough.  
  
Remus collecting letters for his conscientious objector packet: the astronomy professor, his friend Lily and James from childhood who were up at Kent State, Dr. Albus.  
  
_April 14, 1970_  
  
_…_  
  
_Naturally, as a veteran and former non-commissioned officer in the U.S. Army, I strongly disagree with his pacifistic and nonviolent beliefs, but nonetheless I am constantly forced to admire his sincerity and the depths of his compassion and love for his fellow human beings and all living things._  
  
_If I can be of any further aid in your discussions, please do not hesitate to contact me. I am always at the service of my country. I remain_  
  
_Respectfully yours,_  
_Caradoc Dearborn_  
  
Remus saying, “Don’t get it wet.”  
  
“Why won’t you let me write one.” Sirius had tried, frequently, and his mind would wander back to the beginning: I didn’t even like him. He struck me as rude and disinterested, but over time…  
  
The sunshine and the intermittent clouds and the sweet humidity. Jack was with them and then he wasn’t. They ran into in the tear gas again on Sorority Row and they ran into the nearest sorority house to breathe and stop from crying. The few women who weren’t themselves out heckling the National Guard stood around looking and then the house mother came down.  
  
“You can’t be in here,” she said.  
  
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Remus said. “Where are we supposed to go?”  
  
“You should have thought about that before,” she said. “No men allowed.”  
  
Remus — his eyes wet and red, his chest heaving — shouldered past Sirius and back out the door. He turned around. He looked at her in the eyeballs.   
  
“I’m drafted, you know,” he said. Then, “They killed them up there. My friends. I knew them since they were kids.”  
  
She shrugged almost, and Sirius put his hand on Remus’s back, felt breathing.   
  
They were running again. The gas was stinging.

**Author's Note:**

> Caradoc Dearborn’s letter in support of Lupin's conscientious objector status is taken from one written by a family friend in support of my dad in April of 71


End file.
